Everything seemed to be out of control, including her body. What made it worse was that everyone had an opinion. Everyone thought they knew better than she did about how she should care for herself.

She began to push away all of the people who loved her and were just trying to help–her mother, her father, her sister, her boyfriend. She stopped speaking with people she felt just didn’t understand.

Quinet-Posey had been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes after going into diabetic ketoacidosis due to a severe lack of insulin, which caused her blood to become acidic. She received medical treatment and recovered. Although the diabetes diagnosis wasn’t a death sentence, it might as well have been for the 25-year-old.

She was literally losing a part of herself and, with that, life as she knew it. Her body was betraying her. She felt like she was losing her identity and her independence.

And the people around her were not helping, she thought.

“I went through a really dark time where I felt alone. I just couldn’t find myself,” says Quinet-Posey, now 30. “Here I am at 25, and I’m being treated like I’m just this little, diseased kid.

“Everyone’s worried about you. I had a hard time with my family trying to tell me what I should and should not be doing. They didn’t understand the disease themselves, so how are they going to tell me how I’m supposed to live?”

Quinet-Posey went through all the stages of grief: denial, isolation, anger. But she eventually reached a kind of acceptance.

After more than two years of living with the disease, she began reaching out and seeking help. She found a diabetics support group, reconciled with her ex-boyfriend (now her husband) and let her family back into her life.

And life continued to change for the better when she met Ruffle.

‘My best friend’

Ruffle, a 3-year-old yellow Labrador, is a graduate of the Dogs 4 Diabetics program out of the East Bay. Dogs are trained to sense and alert their handlers when their blood sugars have gone low.

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease, in which a person’s pancreas stops producing insulin. It cannot be managed strictly through diet and lifestyle, which can be used to try and control Type 2 diabetes. Those afflicted with Type 1 manage the disease either through daily injections of insulin or an insulin pump. But neither are cures.

Type 1 has been categorized in the past as “juvenile diabetes,” but the term has been changing as more and more adults are diagnosed with the disease.

About 3 million Americans are believed to have Type 1 diabetes, the Juvenile Diabetes Resource Foundation reports. According to the foundation, approximately 30,000 people a year–or about 80 people a day–are diagnosed with Type 1. Half of them are adults.

As doctors and researchers attempt to find a cure, Dogs 4 Diabetics tries to help out and improve the lives of Type 1 diabetics now.

One of those people is Quinet-Posey.

Her mother had learned about the program while researching the disease right after Quinet-Posey’s diagnosis. But it was more than a year later that Quinet-Posey would find herself applying for a service dog from the Dogs 4 Diabetics program. While attending a support group meeting, she met a girl with a dog that had gone through the program.

Soon after she attended a meeting hosted by Dogs 4 Diabetics founder Mark Ruefenacht, eventually filled out the application and was soon matched with Ruffle. And life has never been the same.

“I wouldn’t change it for anything in the world,” Quinet-Posey says. “Now she’s my best friend. I take her everywhere with me.”

It wasn’t so easy at first, Quinet-Posey says, calling it an emotional roller coaster. She had been excited about receiving the dog and began thinking about all the things she’d be able to do with it. But dreaming about a service dog and having one are completely different things, she found out.

“We were late for everything. You know, got to get the baby ready to go out,” she says with a laugh. She couldn’t just run out and grab something from the market as she had in the past. She had to be sure Ruffle had her service-dog jacket on and grab her leash, treats and any other necessities.

And while diabetics are known to be quiet about their disease, taking a dog into a store turned out to be a sure-fire way to grab a lot of attention. Most people wanted to talk to Quinet-Posey about Ruffle, she says, since they thought she must have been training the dog because she doesn’t have any apparent physical issues.

“It’s like you’re wearing this big, glowing neon sign,” Quinet-Posey says. “People want to talk to me about it all the time. And I have to tell them, ‘Please don’t pet the dog.’ “

Dogs from the program are not what could be deemed normal pets. While dog lovers will rain treats on a cute puppy, people other than a handler are asked to refrain from giving too much attention to the dogs since they need to be aware of their handler’s physical health at all times.

Dogs 4 Diabetics puts a heavy weight on the dog/handler relationship, wanting to ensure that both fit comfortably together.

Each client must complete 100 hours of classroom and field training in a three- to four-month period.

The intensive training is done so that clients don’t face the issues that Quinet-Posey did when she first learned that she had the disease. Just having low blood sugar in general can be a major health concern for diabetics.

“It feels like the life is being sucked out of you. I’ve been low and on the floor, by myself. It’s terrifying,” Quinet-Posey says. “You’re thinking, ‘I’ve got to get to something. And it’s got to be something I can get into my body fast enough so I don’t pass out.’ It happens fast. It surprises you, and you don’t find out until it’s too late.”

It helps that Ruffle can sense a low 15 to 20 minutes before Quinet-Posey ever feels the symptoms.

“She’s saved my life so many times, ” Quinet-Posey says.

She hasn’t been the only one.

‘It’s who I am’

The program’s dogs are taught to put a bringsel–a short stick–in their mouths and stop and stare at their handlers to alert them when they’ve gone low. But that doesn’t work in every situation.

When Phil Normington was still working, his dog Edie would be sitting right beside him staring at him as he worked at his desk. It wouldn’t be until a co-worker would come by and say, “Hey, Phil, look at what your dog’s doing,” that he would understand that she had been trying let him know he was low.

So Normington has taught Edie to use different alerts, such as lick his face when he’s sitting down or nudge his leg when he’s standing.

“I’d like to teach her to tackle me, ” Normington says, “but she won’t do it.”

If all of that doesn’t work, Edie goes off to warn Normington’s wife, Kathryn.

“She’ll come to me and say, ‘Phil, check.’ And the circle is complete,” he says.

That circle was completed once when Normington fell unconscious due to a severely low blood sugar level. Unable to wake him up, Edie alerted Kathryn who then gave him two glucose injections.

Normington, 64, was diagnosed as a Type 1 diabetic 24 years ago. The couple had to call 911 three times before Edie arrived in their lives. They haven’t had to call since.

Along with stabilizing his diabetes, Edie has also changed his social life.

“Diabetics live isolated lives. We try to be normal,” he says. “We don’t come in contact with too many other diabetics. But having a dog that has a Dogs 4 Diabetics jacket is a game-changer.

“You live isolated lives because you don’t stand out when you’re a diabetic trying to be normal. People who are diabetics, they’re quiet about their diabetes. I don’t know why. We try not to share our condition because people always have advice for us. ‘Oh, you can’t eat that.’ Of course I can.”

But Edie has helped snap him out of his isolation. He says she’s his constant companion, and he can’t see life without her anymore.

She’s also unknowingly changed his views on his life.

“It’s taken about 20 years to understand that diabetes is more of just a condition, not a disease, ” Normington says. “I’ve learned how to live with it with the help of my dog. It’s not a bummer anymore. It’s who I am.”

"I fully support the principles behind Senate Bill 1: to defeat efforts by the president and Congress to undermine vital federal protections that protect clean air, clean water and endangered species," Newsom said in a written statement.